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The  Canadian  Method  of 

Preventing    Strikes 

and  Lockouts 

Address   by 

HON.  W.   L.  MACKENZIE  KING 

Former  Canadian  Minister  of  Labor 
Delivered    at   the    Annual    Dinner   of   the 

RAILWAY  BUSINESS  ASSOCIATION 


DECEMBER   19,    1912 


*v 


REQUESTS  FOR  COPIES 
of  this  pamphlet  will  be  welcome  from  all  those 
desiring  to  place  it  in  the  hands  of  their  repre- 
sentatives, employees  or  friends.  Copies  furnished 
or  sent  direct  to  lists  upon  application  to  Frank 
W.  Noxon,  Secretary,  Railway  Business  Associa- 
tion, 2  Rector  Street,  New  York. 


TfllfH 


Form  B104 


The    Canadian    Method    of    Preventing 
Strikes  and  Lockouts 

Address  by 

HON.  W.  L.  MACKENZIE  KING 

Former  Canadian  Minister  of  Labor 

Delivered  at  the  Fourth  Annual  Dinner  of  the  Railway  Business 
Association,  the  national  association  of  manufacturers  of  railway 
materials,  equipment  and  supplies,  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria  Hotel, 
New  York,  Dec.  19,  1912 


I  have  been  asked  to  speak  this 
evening  on  the  Canadian  Industrial! 
Disputes  Investigation  Act,  but  before 
doing  so,  may  I  express  to  you  my  sin- 
cere thanks  at  the  honor  which  you 
have  conveyed  in  inviting  me  as  your 
guest  this  evening.  May  I,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, thank  you  this  evening  for  the  ex- 
ceptionally cordial  welcome  which  you 
have  extended,  and  the  more  than  gen- 
erous words  in  which  you  have  phrased 
it.  I  would  like  also,  gentlemen,  to 
thank  you  for  the  honor  in  allowing 
me  to  be  associated  on  this  occasion 
with  so  distinguished  a  citizen  of  your 
country  as  Mr.  J.  J.  Hill.  (Great  ap- 
plause.) 

Coming  from  Canada,  it  is  indeed  a 
pleasure  to  remember  that  Mr.  Hill, 
though  today  an  American  citizen,  was 
at  one  time  also  a  Canadian  (applause). 
Ours  is  the  land  of  his  birth ;  yours  is 
the  land  of  his  adoption.  If  there  ever 
was  a  time  when  I  had  the  privilege 
of  approaching  anything  in  the  nature 
of  fame,  I  think  it  was  this  evening 
when  I  learned  from  Mr.  Hill  that  I 
had  the  honor  of  being  born  within  20 
miles  of  where  he  was  born  (laughter 
and  applause). 

Well,  gentlemen,  we  of  both  coun- 
tries feel  pride  in  his  worthy  and  no- 
ble character,  and  in  the  vastness  of 


his  achievements.  Each  country  has 
profited  by  his  example,  and  his  work 
is  at  once  the  prophecy  and  its  ful- 
fillment of  the  inheritance  which  we 
have  in  common  (applause). 

To  be  born  on  the  North  American 
continent,  whether  to  the  north  or  to 
the  south  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
49th  parallel  is  to  have  not  merely  the 
opportunity  to  share  in  the  work  of 
fashioning  the  future  of  one  country  or 
the  other,  but  it  is  also  to  have  the 
greater  opportunity  of  participating  in 
the  work  of  furthering  commercial  su- 
premacy, industrial  supremacy,  and  the 
maintenance  of  peace  along  lines  of 
enlightened  development,  which  make 
the  growth  of  a  nation,  the  growth  of  a 
continent,  stand  out  in  the  van  of  hu- 
man progress,  and  make  its  enlightened 
development  the  envy  of  the  civilized 
world  (great  applause). 

THE  AMERICAN  PEACE 

At  this  particular  time,  gentlemen, 
while  Europe  is  adding  another  chap- 
ter to  the  tragic  story  of  international 
strife,  and  the  curse  of  competitive  arm- 
ing is  engendering  the  hatred  and  the 
passions  of  men  and  of  nations,  we,  as 
the  President  of  your  Association  has 
said  tonight,  are  approaching  the  cele- 


257154 


bration  of  ioo  years  of  peace  along  the 
boundary  line  of  no  less  distance  than 
4,000  miles,  a  boundary  line  which  ex- 
tends from  the  Atlantic,  which  unites 
us  to  Europe  on  the  one  side,  across  to 
the  Pacific  which  unites  us  with  Asia  on 
the  other.  Along  this  great  frontier 
we  of  the  New  World  have  substituted 
granaries  for  arsenals  and  factories  for 
forts  (applause),  and  for  rivalries  in 
fleets  and  in  armies  we  have  substituted 
the  rivalries  of  commerce  and  trade, 
to  the  advancement  of  the  good  of  our 
respective  countries,  and  of  this  Conti- 
nent, which  we  share  in  common,  and 
to  the  fostering  among  our  peoples  of 
the  amenities  rather  than  the  animosi- 
ties of  life. 

INDUSTRIAL  PEACE 

This,  gentlemen,  is  a  circumstance 
which  as  time  records  its  story  will 
have  an  important  bearing  upon  the 
part  which  this  Continent  will  play  in 
world  supremacy.  If  to  the  mainten- 
ance of  international  peace  we  are 
able  to  add  something  in  the  nature 
of  stability  and  maintenance  of  indus- 
trial peace,  this  continent  should  rise 
to  a  position  of  commercial  and  in- 
dustrial importance,  while  Europe  and 
the  nations  of  Europe  carry  around 
their  shoulders  the  legacies  of  past 
wars  and  the  burden  of  existing  arma- 
ments, and  Asia  struggles  for  the  light 
and  learning  which  has  given  us  the 
civilization  we  enjoy  today  (ap- 
plause). 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that 
I  wish  this  evening  to  speak  on  the 
subject  of  industrial  peace;  to  speak  on 
the  Canadian  Industrial  Disputes  In- 
vestigation Act  and  to  touch,  where  the 
occasion  seems  to  permit  it,  on  some 
comparisons  between  that  legislation 
and  existing  legislation  in  this  country, 
and  possibly  existing  experiments  in 
other  lands. 

FIRST  CONCILIATION  ACT 

The  Canadian  Industrial  Disputes 
Investigation  Act  was  the  outgrowth 


of  previous  legislation  and  of  experi- 
ence gathered  from  previous  legisla- 
tion, and  its  working  not  only  in  Can- 
ada, but  in  other  countries  as  well. 
The  first  act  enacted  by  the  Federal 
Parliament  having  to  do  with  the  ques- 
tion of  industrial  peace  was  the  Con- 
ciliation Act  of  1900.  This  act  was 
copied  from  the  Conciliation  Act  of 
Great  Britain  of  the  same  name,  the 
act  under  which  Sir  George  Asquith 
has  effected  so  many  splendid  settle- 
ments of  recent  years. 

The  Conciliation  Act  was  a  voluntary 
act  and  did  not  apply  compulsion  in 
any  shape  or  form,  but  provided  ma- 
chinery whereby  the  State,,  upon  the 
request  of  either  of  the  parties  to  a 
dispute,  or  of  its  own  motion,  might 
lend  its  good  offices  toward  the  friendly 
mediation  or  settlement  of  a  threat- 
ened or  existing  dispute.  That  was  the 
first  act  which  was  introduced  by  Sir 
William  Mulock,  at  that  time  Post- 
master General  of  Canada. 

RAILWAY  LABOR  DISPUTES 
ACT 

Three  years  later  it  was  followed  by 
another  act,  the  Railway  Labor  Dis- 
putes Act,  which,  as  its  name  im- 
plies, was  confined  to  disputes  on  rail- 
ways, actual  or  apprehended  disputes 
calculated  in  some  way  to  impede  the 
progress  of  the  mails  or  dislocate  trans- 
portation. This  measure  was  some- 
what similar  to  the  Conciliation  Act, 
in  that  it  provided  machinery  by  the 
State  for  use  in  the  intervention  and 
settlement  of  industrial  disputes,  but 
it  went  one  step  further.  It  provided 
machinery  whereby  in  the  event  of  a 
difference  of  statement  between  the 
parties,  there  would  be  some  means  of 
getting  at  the  facts.  It  provided  the 
true  facts  of  the  case  under  oath.  It 
made  provision  for  establishment  of  a 
Board  upon  which  each  of  the  par- 
ties to  a  dispute  might  be  represented, 
and  gave  that  Board  the  power  to  sum- 
mon before  it  witnesses,  to  compel  the 
production   of   affidavits,   to   take   evi- 


dence  under  oath,  and  to  prepare  a  re- 
port in  order  to  influence  public  opin- 
ion. That  was  the  extent  of  the  com- 
pulsion in  that  particular  measure. 
It  simply  provided  machinery  similar 
to  machinery  existing  in  the  courts  at 
the  time  to  enable  the  parties  to  get 
better  at  the  facts.  It  contained,  how- 
ever, no  provision  of  any  kind  of  re- 
striction one  way  or  another. 

ORIGIN  OF  PRESENT  ACT 

In  the  summer  of  1906,  or  in  the  early 
spring  of  that  year,  the  mines  in  Leth- 
bridge, in  the  southern  part  of  the 
Province  of  Alberta,  were  stopped,  ow- 
ing to  a  strike.  That  strike  continued 
until  late  on  into  the  fall,  and  sud- 
denly the  people  in  these  Western  prov- 
inces of  Canada  icalized  that  they  were 
face  to  face  with  the  approach  of  win- 
ter, and  that  owing  to  the  cessation  of 
ope^at.r'on  in  these  mines  they  had  no 
coal  with  which  to  meet  the  situation. 
For  a  time  the  Canadian  West  was  al- 
most in  a  state  of  consternation.  They 
had  not  grasped  the  thought.  They  had 
not  realized  during  the  summer  months 
that  ihe  supply  of  coal  on  which  they 
would  be  dependent  in  the  winter  was 
not  forthcoming,  and  it  was  only  when 
the  snow  began  to  fly  that  they  began 
to  take  estimate*  of  what  they  had  in 
the  way  of  provision  for  the  winter, 
realized  that  winter  was  upon  them 
and  that  they  had  not  the  wherewithal 
to  meet  the  situation. 

To  show  the  condition  at  that  mo- 
ment, let  me  read  a  letter  which  was 
sent  by  one  of  the  settlers  on  the  plains 
to  Sir  Wilfred  Laurier,  who  was 
Prime  Minister  of  Canada  at  that  time. 

As  the  assertion  of  a  free  man  of  his 
lights  as  a  free  man,  and  the  obliga- 
tions which  he  has  a  right  to  expect 
from  the  State,  it  is,  I  think,  an  his- 
toric document.  It  will  appeal  to  you 
all,  I  am  sure,  as  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting of  human  documents. 


A  HUMAN  DOCUMENT 
This  letter  is  dated: 
Local      Improvement      District     of 
Ramsay, 
Saskatchewan,  Nov.  19,  1906. 
"Dear  Sir  Wilfrid: 

The  hamlet  of  Bladworth  is  the 
supplying  point  for  settlers  in  ap- 
proximately 12  townships  surround- 
ing. 

"These  townships  have  approxi- 
mately 50  settlers  each  settled 
therein.  The  country  is  open  rolling 
prairie,  devoid  of  trees.  The  settlers 
depend  for  fuel  on  wood  or  coal  ob- 
tained at  the  nearest  railway  station 
— Bladworth.  The  local  dealers  se- 
cure their  wood  from  the  Prince  Al- 
bert country,  and  their  coal  from  the 
Gait  mines,  Lethbridge.  No  coal  has 
been  obtained  from  this  latter  source 
since  April  last.  One  car  was  ob- 
tained from  Banff  in  September  last, 
since  which  no  coal  has  been  received 
here.  Ten  cars  are  under  orders  from 
Lethbridge  and  none  delivered.  One 
car  is  ordered  from  Estevan  and 
promised  by  the  mine  operator  for 
Dec.  17  next. 

"Wood  has  been  ordered  from  the 
Cowan  Company,  Prince  Albert,  and 
their  answer  is: 

M  'We  have  neither  slabs,  edgings, 
nor  cuttings,  and  though  we  have  in- 
quired, we  are  unable  to  purchase 
any  cord  wood  as  there  is  none  in 
the  city/ 

"Settlers  have  been  burning  lum- 
ber at  $30  a  thousand,  willow  bram- 
ble, twisted  hay  and  grain.  These 
sources  are  well  nigh  exhausted. 

FACING  DEATH 

"Dr.  J.  Fyfe  reports  from  observa- 
tion that  no  fuel  is  in  the  settlers' 
hands,  and  that  suffering  and  per- 
haps death  will  ensue  therefrom.  All 
public  schools  are  closed  for  want  of 
fuel.  The  Saskatchewan  Hotel,  a  30- 
roomed  house,  has  but  one  fire. 

"A  blizzard  has  been  blowing  on 
Nov.     15,     16    and     17,     with     zero 


weather.  I  leave  you,  sir,  to  imagine 
what  the  condition  of  your  fellow 
subjects  is  in  the  electoral  division 
of  Batoche — a  name  not  unknown  in 
history.  This  condition  is  not  local, 
but  general. 

THE  RIGHT  TO  LIVE 

"We  are  informed  that  those  per- 
sons operating  the  mines  of  the  peo- 
ple are  disputing  over  their  rights, 
regardless  of  the  right  of  the  people 
to  live.  I  would  respectfully  ask, 
that  you,  sir,  put  an  end  to  a  dispute 
that  is  intolerable,  and  the  mainte- 
nance of  which  endangers  the  life 
and  happiness  (inalienable  rights  of 
all  free  people)  of  all  settlers. 

"I  ask  you,  sir,  on  behalf  of  a 
suffering  people,  that  by  the  powers 
vested  in  you  the  right  of  eminent 
domain  be  exercised. 

"I  can  assure  you,  sir,  without  ex- 
aggeration that  this  matter  is  one  of 
life  and  death  to  the  settlers  here, 
one  requiring  immediate  action. 

"Your  obedient  humble  servant, 
"WM.  L.  RAMSAY, 
"Chairman  of  Committee." 

DIFFICULTIES  OF  MEDIATION 
Well,  it  would  take  too  long,  gen- 
tlemen, to  recount  the  circumstances 
which  brought  that  industrial  dispute 
to  a  close.  I  hope  you  will  pardon 
the  personal  reference,  if,  for  the  sake 
of  helping  to  make  clear  the  purpose 
underlying  this  Act,  I  mention  to  you 
that  having  been  sent  to  deal  with 
that  particular  situation,  I  encountered 
amid  these  circumstances  the  two  ob- 
stacles which  I  imagine  most  men,  who 
have  had  anything  to  do  with  the  set- 
tlement of  industrial  disputes,  have  en- 
countered on  a  great  many  occasions: 
In  the  first  place  the  difficulty  of 
getting  the  parties  to  meet  together; 
and  in  the  second  place,  the  difficulty 
of  getting  accurate  information  in  re- 
gard to  disputed  points  when  they  are 
together. 

Now,  what  was  the  situation  in  Sas- 
katchewan at  that  time?      There  were 


settlers  all  over  these  prairies  practi- 
cally on  the  verge  of  freezing  to  death 
in  their  homes.  There  were  municipal- 
ities unable  to  give  any  assistance  one 
way  or  another  to  the  people  who  be- 
longed to  them.  There  was  the  Prov- 
ince itself,  absolutely  incapacitated  in 
the  matter  of  bringing  any  relief.  There 
was  the  will  of  the  people  of  those 
provinces,  the  will  of  the  people  of  the 
whole  country,  as  expressed  through 
the  Dominion  Parliament,  desirous  to 
affect  the  situation,  and  absolutely 
thwarted  in  its  endeavor  because  the 
parties  preferred  to  stand  and  debate 
the  question  whether  such-and-such  an 
action  might  mean  the  recognition  of 
a  union,  or  whether  such-and-such  a 
statement  was  or  was   not  true. 

ORIGINAL   ISSUE   FORGOTTEN 

To  make  the  situation  more  exas- 
perating, one  found,  as  I  think  one  will 
usually  find  in  connection  with  disputes 
that  run  on  for  a  little  time,  that  the 
main  trouble  had  ceased  to  be  the  ques- 
tion at  issue  at  the  outset;  that  there 
had  come  to  be  an  endless  number  of 
bickerings  and  bitternesses,  and  that 
the  difficulty  of  getting  over  these 
prejudices  and  hatreds,  which  had  been 
engendered  during  the  course  of  the 
struggle,  was  a  much  more  difficult 
task  than  the  settlement  of  any  ques- 
tion of  actual  condition  of  hours  or  of 
wages. 

Well,  gentlemen,  it  was  having  this 
situation  in  mind,  having  the  folly  and 
the  criminality  of  such  a  set  of  cir- 
cumstances impressed  indelibly  upon 
my  mind  that  on  returning  to  Ottawa, 
after  that  experience,  I  made  up  my 
mind  that  if  it  was  possible  to  gain  ex- 
pression in  legislation,  to  any  measure 
which  would  help  in  the  future  to  pre- 
vent a  national  calamity  of  that  kind,  I 
would  use  what  chance  might  come  to 
hand  toward  the  attainment  of  that 
particular  end.  And  so,  after  reaching 
Ottawa,  Parliament  being  in  session  at 
the  time,  I  ventured  to  set  out  the 
circumstances,  and  make  one  or  two 


recommendations.    This  is  taken  from 
the  report  given  at  the  time: 

ACT  RECOMMENDED 
"When  it  is  remembered  that  organ- 
ized society  alone  makes  possible  the 
operation  of  mines  to  the  mutual  benefit 
of  those  engaged  in  the  work  of  produc- 
tion, a  recognition  of  the  obligations 
due  society  by  the  parties  is  something 
which  the  State  is  justified  in  compell- 
ing if  the  parties  themselves  are  un- 
willing to  concede  it.  In  any  civilized 
community  private  rights  should  cease 
when  they  become  public  wrongs.  (Ap- 
plause). Clearly,  there  is  nothing  in 
the  rights  of  parties  to  a  dispute  to 
justify  the  inhabitants  of  a  province 
being  brought  face  to  face  with  a  fuel 
famine  amid  winter  conditions,  so  long 
as  there  is  coal  in  the  ground,  and  men 
and  capital  at  hand  to  mine  it.  Either 
the  disputants  must  be  prepared  to 
leave  the  differences  which  they  are  un- 
able to  amicably  settle  to  the  arbitra- 
ment of  such  authority  as  the  State 
may  determine  most  expedient,  or 
make  way  for  others  who  are  prepared 
to  do  so. 

INVESTIGATION  FIRST 
"Inasmuch  as  coal  is  in  this  country 
one  of  the  foremost  necessaries,  on 
which  not  only  a  great  part  of  the  man- 
ufacturing and  transportation  indus- 
tries but  also,  as  the  recent  experience 
has  shown,  much  of  happiness  and  life 
itself  depends,  it  would  appear  that  if 
legislation  can  be  devised,  which,  with- 
out encroaching  upon  the  recognized 
rights  of  employers  and  employees,  will 
at  the  same  time  protect  the  public,  the 
State  would  be  justified  in  enacting 
any  measure  which  will  make  the  strike 
or  lockout  in  a  coal  mine  a  thing  of  the 
past.  Such  an  end,  it  would  appear, 
might  be  achieved,  at  least  in  part, 
were  provision  made  whereby,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Railway  Labor  Disputes 
Act,  all  questions  in  dispute  might  be 
referred  to  a  Board  empowered  to  con- 
duct an  investigation  under  oath,  with 
the  additional    feature,    perhaps,    that 


such  reference  should  not  be  optional 
but  obligatory,  and  pending  the  investi- 
gation and  until  the  board  has  issued 
its  finding  the  parties  be  restrained,  on 
pain  of  penalty,  from  declaring  a  lockout 
or  strike. 

"In  view  of  past  experience  and  the 
present  situation,  I  would,  therefore,  re- 
spectfully recommend  that  the  atten- 
tion of  Parliament  be,  at  as  early  a  date 
as  possible,  invited  to  a  consideration 
of  some  such  or  other  measure  with  a 
view  of  preventing  a  possible  recur- 
rence of  an  experience  such  as  this 
country  has  been  forced  to  witness  dur- 
ing the  past  month,  and  of  promoting 
in  the  interests  of  the  whole  people  the 
cause  of  industrial  peace.', 

SCOPE  BROADENED 

Well,  gentlemen,  the  recommenda- 
tion contained  there  was  subsequently 
elaborated  into  the  form  of  a  bill,  and 
this  bill  was  introduced  into  the  House 
by  the  Hon.  Rudolph  Lemieux  on  Dec. 
17,  1906.  The  House  of  Commons  and 
Parliament  generally  having  in  mind 
the  experience  of  that  year  were  in  a 
mood  to  take  up  legislation  of  that 
kind,  and  it  passed  rapidly  through 
the  House  of  Commons  to  the  Senate, 
received  the  Royal  Assent  on  March 
22,  and  became  law  from  that  time. 

Now  that  measure,  as  I  have  already 
indicated,  while  originally  framed  with 
a  view  of  protecting  the  public,  trans- 
portation companies,  manufacturing 
concerns,  and  all  classes  in  the  com- 
munity against  the  possible  recurrence 
of  a  situation  which  might  produce  a 
fuel  famine  at  a  critical  time,  was 
widened  so  as  to  include  all  those 
classes  of  industries  which  we  designate 
generally  under  the  term  of  public 
utilities,  those  industries  which  have  to 
do  with  the  serving  of  the  public  gen- 
erally, and  which  depend  upon  the 
public  in  such  large  measure  for  their 
success. 

So  the  Act  was  broadened  to  include 
transportation  companies  of  all  kinds, 
street  railways  companies  as  well  as 


steam  railway  companies;  mines  of 
every  class,  metalliferous  as  well  as 
coal  mines,  other  agencies  of  communi- 
cation and  transportation,  such  as  the 
telegraph  and  the  telephone,  electric 
lights,  waterworks  and  civic  works  of 
different  kinds,  all  that  vast  group 
which  are  so  familiar  to  each  of  you 
under  the  head  of  "public  service  utili- 
ties." 

That  is  the  scope  of  the  Act  at  the 
present  time,  and  in  considering  this 
work  and  the  effect  of  it,  this  should 
be  kept  in  mind,  because  it  goes  much 
further  in  the  classes  of  employees  to 
which  it  applies  than  much  existing 
legislation  in  other  countries. 

INVESTIGATION  OBLIGATORY 

The  provisions  are  very  simple.  The 
Act  provides  that  where  a  strike  or 
lockout  is  threatened  in  any  one  of 
these  industries,  before  such  a  strike 
or  lockout  can  legally  take  place,  the 
parties  must  refer  their  differences  to 
a  Board  for  settlement.  The  act  pro- 
vides machinery  by  which  they  make 
this  reference.  Each  party,  the  party 
about  to  strike,  or  the  party  about  to 
lockout,  must  serve  a  notice  informing 
the  government  that  unless  a  Board  is 
appointed  a  strike  or  lockout  will  take 
place ;  that  they  have  exhausted  all  pos- 
sible means  of  arriving  at  a  settlement 
between  themselves,  and  that  they  ask 
the  government  to  appoint  a  Board. 

The  notice  served  on  the  government 
contains  a  statement  of  the  differences 
and  a  copy  of  that  statement  is  re- 
quired by  the  act  to  be  sent  to  the  other 
party  to  the  dispute. 

SPECIAL  BOARD  CHOSEN 

Then  the  Minister  of  Labor  calls 
upon  each  of  the  parties  to  name  a 
member  for  the  Board.  The  men  who 
are  applying  or  the  company  that  is 
applying,  in  the  first  instance,  are 
called  upon  to  name  one  member;  the 
opposite  side  are  called  upon  to  name 
a  member,  and  these  two  chosen  in  this 
way  meet  together,  and  are  given  an 


opportunity  to  agree  upon  a  chairmai 

If  they  are  unable  to  agree  upon  a 
chairman  within  a  specified  time  then 
the  Minister  of  Labor  himself  appoints 
a  chairman,  or  if  either  party  fails  to 
name  a  member  of  a  Board  themselves, 
the  Minister  of  Labor  appoints  someone 
to  act  in  the  place  of  the  party  not 
making  the  appointment. 

This  Board  when  it  is  appointed  has 
almost  the  powers  of  a  court.  It  may 
compel  the  production  of  documents; 
it  may  subpoena  witnesses ;  it  may  take 
evidence  under  oath,  but  its  duty  is  pri- 
marily that  of  a  conciliation  board  in 
the  first  instance,  and  a  board  of  media- 
tion, and  only  secondarily  that  of  a 
court. 

OFFICIAL  PUBLICITY 

Once  the  parties  have  been  brought 
before  the  Board  in  this  fashion,  if  the 
Board  through  its  good  offices  can 
bring  about  a  settlement  by  concilia- 
tion, it  prepares  its  report  and  sends  it 
in  to  the  government.  If,  however,  they 
are  unable  to  effect  any  settlement,  then 
the  Board  prepares  a  report,  which  is 
given  to  the  public,  and  announced 
through  one  of  the  government  organs, 
given  to  the  press,  and  sent  broadcast 
throughout  the  land,  and  that  report 
sets  out  what  in  the  opinion  of  the 
Board  is  the  real  trouble  at  issue,  and 
what,  in  its  opinion,  ought  to  be  done 
in  justice  to  the  situation  to  prevent  a 
strike  or  a  lockout. 

AWARD  NOT  COMPULSORY 

There  the  function  of  the  govern- 
ment ends.  There  is  nothing  in  the  act 
which  compels  the  acceptance  of  this 
particular  award.  It  is  not  compulsory 
arbitration.  It  is  simply  compulsory  in- 
vestigation. There  is  no  restraint  upon 
the  parties.  Once  they  have  had  this 
inquiry  in  the  matter  of  whether  a 
strike  or  lockout  shall  take  place,  they 
may  do  just  as  they  please  about  it ;  but 
the  act  has  this  feature  to  it,  that  if 
the  public  is  subjected  to  the  incon- 
venience of  the  cessation  of  operation 


in  mines  or  upon  railways,  or  any  of 
these  utilities,  the  public  knows  what 
the  trouble  is  about,  and  what,  in  the 
opinion  of  men  who  have  been  ap- 
pointed to  look  into  it,  appears  to  be 
the  right  and  the  fair  thing  to  do. 

THIRTY  DAYS'   NOTICE 

That  is  the  act  as  it  stands  at  the 
present  time.  There  have  been  one  or 
two  clauses  added  since  the  Act  was 
introduced.  One  of  them  is  a  rather 
important  one.  This  has  to  do  with 
the  notice  which  companies  are  sup- 
posed to  give  or  men  are  supposed  to 
give  companies  before  any  changes  in 
wages  or  conditions  affecting  hours  take 
place.  The  Act  provides  that  at  least 
^o  days'  notice  must  be  given  by  either 
party  wishing  to  change  the  status  quo 
in  that  particular.  That  at  first  sight 
may  see  somewhat  arbitrary,  but  if 
you  stop  and  think,  all  these  large  con- 
cerns, for  the  most  part,  have  long 
standing  agreements,  and  a  30  days'  no- 
tice is  a  very  customary  thing  in  most 
cases ;  and  the  significance  of  that  notice 
is  the  more  apparent  when  I  explain 
this  feature  to  you. 

When  the  Act  was  introduced,  some 
of  the  men  felt  that  in  some  of  its  par- 
ticulars it  put  a  little  bit  too  much  in 
the  way  of  restraint  upon  them.  They 
said:  "An  employer  may  threaten  to 
change  our  wages,  to  lower  our  wages, 
or  to  increase  hours  or  to  do  something 
of  the  kind  which  is  adverse  to  us,  and 
if  we  don't  like  it,  we  have  to  apply  for 
a  Board  and  then  if  a  Board  decides 
against  us,  we  are  told,  'You  made  the 
application  and  your  own  Board  has 
decided  against  you.  You  ought  to  ac- 
cept the  result.  The  onus  is  on  you  for 
having  applied  for  a  board.'  " 

Now  this  amendment  puts  the  onus  on 
the  party  that  wishes  to  make  the 
change  to  make  the  application  for  the 
Board.  If  the  men  want  an  increase  of 
wages,  and  the  company  objects  to  the 
increase,  then  the  men  ask  for  a  Board 
to  show  cause  why  that  increase  should 
be  granted. 


9 


On  the  other  hand,  if  a  Company 
wants  to  reduce  wages  at  a  particular 
time  and  the  men  object,  according  to 
this  law  the  company  cannot  reduce  its 
wages  until  a  Board  has  investigated 
the  case  and  made  a  statement  in  regard 
to  it.  In  that  way,  the  interests  of  the 
parties  are  respected,  and  the  onus  is 
put  upon  the  party  that  wishes  to 
change  the  status  quo  to  show  reason 
why  it  should  or  should  not  be  done. 

RESULTS 

Now,  as  to  the  workings  of  the  Act 
and  its  effect.  It  has  been  on  the  stat- 
utes for  over  five  and  a  half  years,  six 
years  in  March  next,  so  that  the  experi- 
ment has  run  on  long  enough  to  enable 
us  to  see  whether  there  is  any  virtue  in 
the  measure. 

During  that  time,  five  and  a  half 
years,  up  to  September,  1912,  from  the 
official  records,  there  have  been  alto- 
gether 132  applications  for  boards  un- 
der the  Act,  40  of  these  have  had  to 
do  with  coal  mining,  10  with  metallife- 
rus  mining,  53  with  railways,  10  with 
street  railways,  3  with  longshoremen,  2 
with  freight-handlers,  1  with  teamsters, 
one  with  sailors,  1  with  ship-liners,  1 
with  deck-hands,  2  with  commercial 
telegraphers,  2  with  telephone  workers, 
1  with  civic  laborers,  2  with  electrical 
workers,  and  4  related  to  the  boot  and 
shoe  industries  and  industries  not 
necessarily  under  the  act  but  who  can 
come  in  under  it  if  the  parties  acqui- 
esce.   * 

AVERTED  ALL  BUT  FIFTEEN 

During  that  time  out  of  132  appli- 
cations for  Boards,  according  to  the  sta- 
tistical records,  strikes  were  averted  in 
all  save  15  in  these  particular  indus- 
tries (applause). 

In  that  connection  let  me  put  in  one 
word  of  parenthesis.  There  were  at  the 
beginning,  when  the  Act  was  first  put 
into  operation,  one  or  two  instances 
where  the  men  came  out  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the  Act 
upon  the  statute.  This  measure  applies, 


as  you  will  bear  in  mind,  from  the  At- 
lantic to  the  Pacific,  and  it  takes  some 
little  time  for  men  in  all  parts  of  a 
country  to  become  acquainted  with 
the  provisions  of  existing  law.  There 
have  been  two  or  three  cases  where 
men  have  come  out  without  knowing  of 
the  existence  of  the  statute,  and  these 
figures  would  be  subject  to  modifica- 
tion, in  that  connection ;  but  I  think  in 
every  case  where  they  did  come  out,  as 
soon  as  the  law  was  brought  immedi- 
ately to  their  attention,  they  named  a 
member  for  a  Board,  and  had  the  dif- 
ference settled  under  the  law;  and  in 
all  cases,  with  the  exception  of  15,  by 
every  reference  that  has  been  made  to 
a  Board,  under  this  Act,  a  strike  has 
been  averted  or  ended.  Of  these  132 
cases,  20  were  settled  after  the  applica- 
tion was  made  for  a  Board,  but  before 
the  Board  was  actually  appointed. 
There  is  a  feature  in  connection  with 
this  act  to  keep  in  mind.  The  number 
of  applications  does  not  necessarily  af- 
ford or  give  the  truest  index  of  the 
service  which  is  being  rendered  the 
country  by  legislation  of  that  kind.  You 
can  readily  see  that  once  a  party  is 
obliged  to  come  with  its  case  before 
the  public,  they  are  not  going  to  rush 
into  a  situation  and  be  exposed  in  re- 
gard to  it  unless  they  feel  that  there  is 
a  substantial  measure  of  justice  in  the 
case.  I  know  from  personal  knowledge 
both  from  the  men  and  from  employers 
that  there  have  been  cases  where 
strikes  would  have  taken  place  but  for 
the  fact  that  there  was  under  this  meas- 
ure, the  certainty  of  public  investiga- 
tion in  regard  to  different  features,  and 
rather  than  have  a  public  investigation, 
the  parties  themselves  came  together 
and  settled  their  differences  without 
any  reference  to  a  Board.  (Applause.) 
In  107  cases  the  Boards  reported 
upon  their  work,  and  five  cases  were 
before  Boards  at  the  end  of  Septem- 
ber. 

STREET  RAILWAY  STRIKES 
Now  to  bring  out,  perhaps,  a  little 


more  clearly,  the  effect  of  this  Act, 
let  me  first  of  all  mention  just  two  or 
three  classes,  and  name  them  in  par- 
ticular, and  show  its  results.  Take 
the  case  of  the  street  railways.  We  used 
to  have  in  Canada  a  series  of  street 
railway  strikes  every  year  prior  to  the 
enactment  of  this  law.  There  was  not 
a  year  went  by  that  we  had  not  in 
some  cities,  in  some  years  in  a  number 
of  the  cities,  strikes  on  the  street  rail- 
ways, and  they  were  usually  among 
the  worst  strikes  which  we  had  in  the 
country.  By  "worst"  I  mean  the  pub- 
lic were  very  much  inconvenienced;  a 
great  deal  of  property  was  destroyed, 
and  in  some  cases  there  was  serious  in- 
jury, and  I  think  in  one  or  two  cases 
loss  of  life  in  consequence  of  them. 

Now  since  this  Act  has  gone  into 
force,  now  a  period  of  six  years  nearly, 
we  have  had  only  one  strike  on  all  the 
street  railway  systems  of  the  Dominion 
of  Canada — just  one  strike  (applause). 
That  was  a  strike  which  took  place  in 
the  city  of  Winnipeg  after  a  Board  had 
investigated,  and  it  lasted  only  a  few 
days,  and  then  a  settlement  was  made 
on  the  basis  of  the  award  given  out  by 
the  Board  (applause). 

STEAM  RAILWAYS 

Then  let  us  turn  from  street  rail- 
ways to  steam  railways.  Here  let  me 
draw  a  distinction  which  is  drawn  in 
the  administration  of  the  Erdman  Act. 
I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  reading  re- 
cently the  excellent  report  issued  by 
Mr.  Neill,  and  I  notice  that  in  that  re- 
port he  points  out  that  the  operation 
of  the  Erdman  Act  is  limited  strictly 
to  the  classes  of  employees  who  consti- 
tute what  are  known  as  the  operating 
forces  of  a  particular  road;  that  is  to 
say,  the  engineers,  the  firemen,  the 
trainmen,  the  conductors,  the  section 
men,  the  telegraphers  and  switchmen. 
I  believe  those  seven  groups  are  the 
only  groups  with  which  the  gentlemen 
who  have  been  operating  under  that 
Act  have  attempted  to  deal. 

Now  in  the  Canadian  Act,  the  appli- 


10 


cation  is  necessarily  much  wider  than 
that.  It  includes  all  classes  connected 
with  railways;  the  men  employed  in 
the  roundhouses,  machinists,  boiler- 
maker,  car-builders,  and  all  that  class 
of  employees;  freight-handlers,  team- 
sters, if  employed  by  railway  com- 
panies ;  clerks  in  the  offices  of  the  rail- 
way companies.  It  takes  in  every  class 
of  employees  belonging  to  a  particular 
company. 

There  have  been  four  strikes  in  Can- 
ada in  the  course  of  five  and  three- 
quarters  years  affecting  railway  em- 
ployees ;  but  if  we  leave  out  of  account 
the  classes  other  than  those  to  which 
the  Erdman  Act  applies,  there  has  been 
since  this  Act  went  into  force  but  one 
strike  affecting  the  operating  crews  on 
the  railways  of  the  Dominion  during 
that  time.  That  was  the  Grand  Trunk 
strike  which  took  place  a  couple  of 
years  ago,  and  which  took  place  after 
there  had  been  an  investigation  under 
one  of  these  Boards.  There  has  been,  as 
possibly  some  of  you  may  have  no- 
ticed, a  strike  recently,  in  connection 
with  the  C.  P.  R.  of  some  classes  of  the 
employees,  but  the  classes  concerned 
were  not  the  operating  group.  They 
have  not  affected  in  any  way  the  trans- 
portation so  far  as  the  public  is  con- 
cerned. The  Minister  of  Labor  refused 
to  grant  a  Board  at  the  outset.  He  gave 
as  his  reason,  and  I  am  speaking  now 
only  from  newspaper  reports,  that  the 
number  of  questions  to  be  dealt  with 
were  too  many  for  a  Board,  or  that  the 
class  of  employees  was  not  the  class 
that  the  Act  was  intended  to  affect. 

Well,  he  is  a  political  opponent  of 
mine,  so  I  won't  say  whether  he  was 
right  or  whether  he  was  wrong  in  the 
interpretation  that  he  put  upon  the  Act. 
(Laughter  and  applause.)  But  I  will 
say  this,  that  if  I  had  been  Minister  of 
Labor  the  Act  would  have  been  applied 
I  and  that  strike  would  not  have  taken 
place  (laughter  and  applause).  How- 
ever, the  law  is  there.  It  is  there  to  be 
administered  according  to  its  particular 
terms,  and  as  I  say,  when  you  limit  it 


in  this  way  to  the  operating  classes, 
there  has  been  this  one  strike  in  that 
period  of  years. 

IMMUNITY   ALMOST  COMPLETE 

Then  take  another  class  of  labor  that 
we  used  to  have  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  strikes  among,  the  men  dealing 
with  the  loading  of  ships,  ship  laborers, 
and  dock  laborers,  and  wharf  hands, 
and  the  like.  Every  spring  in  Halifax, 
Montreal  or  Quebec  we  had  our  steam- 
ship companies  tied  up  as  the  conse- 
quence of  some  strike.  Since  that  Act 
went  into  effect  we  have  not  had  any 
stoppage  in  that  particular  industry. 

We  used  to  have  another  important 
industry  affected  at  times,  and  that  was 
the  commercial  telegraphers.  You  had 
a  great  strike  in  this  country  a  short 
time  ago  of  commercial  telegraphers. 
Members  of  the  same  union  were  con- 
cerned in  that  strike  in  Canada,  but  in 
Canada  this  law  was  applicable  and 
our  men  did  not  go  out.  I  think  they 
had  an  investigation  under  the  Act,  but 
we  have  not  had,  since  this  Act  went 
into  force,  a  single  strike  among  the 
telegraphers  or  telephone  operators  in 
Canada. 

So  you  see,  gentlemen,  if  you  take 
into  consideration  those  different 
classes,  take  the  street  railways,  the 
steam  railways,  the  shipping  com- 
panies, and  the  commercial  telegraph- 
ers, you  will  see  that  so  far  as  the 
agencies  of  transportation  and  com- 
munication are  concerned,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  cases  that  I  have  men- 
tioned, we  have  enjoyed  for  nearly  five 
and  a  half  years  a  complete  immunity 
from  industrial  strife. 

ACT  GENERALLY  APPROVED 

Now  you  will  ask  me  how  is  this  Act 
viewed  by  the  different  classes  in  Can- 
ada. Well,  I  think  I  may  say  that  the 
public  generally  have  viewed  that  Act 
with  a  good  deal  of  favor;  that  you 
could  not  get  any  government  today  to 
repeal  that  statute,  if  you  tried.  The 
Liberal   government   put   it   upon   the 


11 


books.  The  Conservative  government 
is  in  power  today,  and  the  Minister  was 
asked  the  other  day  if  it  was  his  inten- 
tion to  repeal  the  Act,  and  he  replied 
that  he  had  no  intention  of  the  kind,  no 
such  intention  whatever.  So  I  think  we 
may  take  it  for  granted  that  the  Act 
has  appealed  to  the  general  public  to 
the  extent,  at  least,  that  it  will  remain 
upon  our  books. 

It  would,  perhaps,  not  be  doing  jus- 
tice to  human  nature  if  we  did  not  say 
that  every  measure  is  bound  to  have  its 
detractors,  and  bound  to  have  its  men 
who  will  find  fault  with  it,  and  there 
are  plenty  of  men,  some  of  them  on 
very  good  grounds,  and  some  of  them 
perhaps  not  on  the  highest  grounds, 
who  are  apt  to  find  fault  with  any  legis- 
lation one  way  or  another. 

I  believe  if  you  ask  the  managers  of 
the  companies  that  have  been  concerned 
with  this  particular  measure,  that  you 
will  find  them  pretty  nearly  unanimous 
in  the  approval  which  they  give  to  its 
provisions. 

ATTITUDE  OF  LABOR 
Then  when  you  come  to  the  working- 
men,  perhaps  I  could  not  do  better  than 
just  quote  from  what  I  quoted  in  Par- 
liament at  the  time  we  were  adding  one 
or  two  amendments  to  the  Act.  The 
amendment  was  the  one  that  I  have 
spoken  of,  requiring  the  30  days*  notice. 
The  other  amendment  was  an  amend- 
ment put  in  at  the  instance  of  railway 
employees,  to  meet  what  seemed  to  me 
a  very  fair  need  on  their.part.  Under 
this  act  we  required  them,  before  they 
applied  for  a  Board,  to  poll  their  whole 
system  with  a  view  of  being  able  to 
make  the  declaration  which  the  law  re- 
quires, that  a  strike  will  take  place  un- 
less a  Board  is  granted.  They  pointed 
out  that  was  a  great  deal  of  expense, 
particularly  as  they  might  have  to  poll 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and 
also  from  the  circumstance  "that  they 
would  have  to  poll  again  later,  to  find 
out  whether  the  finding  of  the  Board 
would  meet  with  the  approval  of  the 
employees.       They     asked     that     some 


change  should  be  made  in  that  particu- 
lar. So  we  amended  the  Act  so  that 
it  would  read,  that  in  the  case  of  rail- 
way employees,  or,  the  employees  of 
any  utility  extending  beyond  the  boun- 
daries of  a  single  province,  if  a  union 
was  recognized  by  its  employers,  if  the 
employers  were  entering  into  agree- 
ments, and  had  agreements  with  their 
organization,  as  is  the  case  practically 
in  all  the  railroad  brotherhoods,  in  that 
case  a  declaration  from  the  officers 
themselves  that  they  had  exhausted 
their  means  for  a  settlement  of  the  dif- 
ferences existing,  would  be  sufficient  to 
cause  the  act  to  be  invoked  without  the 
necessity  of  polling  the  whole  organi- 
zation. 

At  the  time  of  introducing  the  amend- 
ment, I  asked  the  representatives  of  the 
different  railroad  brotherhoods  if  they 
would  give  me  their  opinion  of  the  Act 
so  I  might  give  it  to  Parliament  and  be 
in  a  position  where  I  would  know  what 
I  was  saying  in  asking  Parliament  to 
grant  the  amendment  suggested.  With- 
out reading  in  detail,  I  will  quote  from 
the  official  records  of  the  debates  of 
the  House  of  Commons  of  Apri  26, 
1910. 

BROTHERHOODS  SATISFIED 

The  first  letter  is  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Calvin  Lawrence,  the  legislative  repre- 
sentative of  the  Brotherhood  of  Loco- 
motive Engineers.    He  said,  in  brief: 

"I  am  pleased  to  say  that  I  have  very 
carefully  looked  over  the  suggested 
amendments  and  they  appear  to  me  to 
be  very  satisfactory,  and,  in  my  opin- 
ion, if  adopted  by  Parliament,  they 
should  bring  the  Industrial  Disputes 
Investigation  Act  of  1907  into  a  form 
generally  satisfactory,  and  acceptable 
to  railway  employees;  therefore,  as  rep- 
resenting the  Brotherhood  of  Engi- 
neers, I  can  consistently  endorse  the 
Act  when  so  amended,  believing  that  it 
will,  if  amended  as  proposed,  be  a  bene- 
fit not  only  to  railway  employees,  but 
also  to  the  public  generally." 

Mr.  W.  J.  Dowell,  legislative  repre- 


12 


sentative  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Loco- 
motive Firemen  and  Enginemen,  said : 

"I  have  gone  carefully  over  the 
amendments  proposed,  and  I  am  of  the 
opinion  that  they  will  be  satisfactory 
should  they  become  law  as  they  are 
drafted.  I  am  also  of  the  opinion  that 
the  Industrial  Disputes  Investigation 
Act,  if  it  is  amended  as  proposed,  will 
bring  the  act  into  a  form  which  will 
meet  with  the  general  approval  of  the 
railway  employees  that  I  have  the 
honor  to  represent." 

Mr.  John  Maloney,  legislative  repre- 
sentative of  the  Brotherhood  of  Rail- 
road Trainmen,  said : 

"I  also  feel  if  proposed  amendments 
are  adopted  by  Parliament,  they  will 
bring  the  Industrial  Disputes  Investi- 
gation Act  into  a  form  satisfactory  and 
acceptable  to  all  members  of  the  train- 
men's organization." 

Mr.  D.  Campbell,  Third  Vice-Presi- 
dent of  the  Order  of  Railroad  Teleg- 
raphers, said : 

"I  desire  to  say  that  if  these  amend- 
ments can  be  obtained,  the  Act  will  be 
entirely  satisfactory  to  our  organiza- 
tion." * 

Mr.  A.  B.  Lowe,  President  of  the 
International  Brotherhood  of  Mainte- 
nance of  Way  Employees,  said : 

"My  opinion  of  the  Act  itself  has 
never  changed,  that  it  is  one  of  the  best 
pieces  of  legislation  that  has  been 
passed  to  my  knowledge,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  industrial  peace."      (Applause.) 

Now,  those,  gentlemen,  are  some  of 
the  opinions  expressed  by  some  of  the 
railway  men  at  that  time.  They  may 
have  changed  their  opinions  since  then, 
but  I  believe  that  most  of  them  have 
not,  and  that  the  leading  men  among 
the  railroad  brotherhoods  in  Canada  to- 
day will  endorse  that  legislation  as  in 
the  interests  not  only  of  the  public,  but 
as  in  the  interests  of  the  railway  em- 
ployees as  well.  And  I  believe  that  if 
one  confines  the  expression  of  opinion 
to  the  groups  that  come  immediately 
under  this  act,  one  will  find  that  on 
the  whole  it  has  met  and  is  meeting  to- 


day    with     pretty     general     approval 
throughout  the  Dominion. 

ERDMAN  ACT  SUCCESSFUL 

Now  let  me  just  in  conclusion  say 
one  word  in  reference  to  your  legisla- 
tion here,  and  in  reference  to  one  or 
two  suggestions  that  have  been  made 
elsewhere. 

Naturally  one  hesitates  to  make  any 
comparisons,  but  let  me  first  of  all 
speak  of  the  Erdman  Act,  as  I  have 
seen  from  the  accounts  given  in  the 
report  of  that  particular  measure.  I 
think  it  is  stated  in  regard  to  the  Erd- 
man Act  that  within  the  last  five  or 
six  years  its  provisions  have  been  gen- 
erally applied,  and  that  in  every  in- 
stance except  one  in  which  the  Act  has 
been  applied  prior  to  the  existence  of  a 
strike,  in  which  the  gentlemen  who 
have  acted  as  mediators  under  that 
measure  have  had  the  opportunity  of 
intervention,  they  have  prevented  any 
strike  or  lockout  taking  place,  and  that 
as  far  as  all  strikes  are  concerned,  and 
all  disputes,  that  mediation,  in  every 
case  where  it  has  taken  place,  has 
proven  effective. 

Now,  gentlemen,  could  there  be  a 
stronger  endorsement  for  the  princi- 
ple, speaking  broadly,  the  principle  of 
government  intervention  in  industrial 
disputes? 

WHY  LIMIT  THE  ACT? 

The  Erdman  Act,  as  I  have  ex- 
pressed to  you  already,  is  limited  to  the 
operating  forces  of  railway  employees 
only,  but  if  it  has  had  this  great  suc- 
cess, which  it  has  had,  why,  let  me  say 
what  I  have  often  wished  I  might  have 
the  opportunity  of  saying,  that  I  believe 
no  finer  testimonial  in  this  world  could 
be  given  to  character,  to  manhood,  to 
splendid  ability  than  that  act  gives  to 
Mr.  Judge  Knapp  and  Mr.  Neill,  who 
have  had  to  do  with  its  operation.  (Ap- 
plause.) 

I  think  it  has  borne  out  that  where 
you  can  get,  as  you  have  in  these  two 
gentlemen,  men  of  strong  personality, 


13 


men  of  character,  men  of  influence,  men 
of  broad  mind,  and  honest  judgment, 
where  you  can  give  such  men  an  op- 
portunity of  dealing  with  an  industrial 
situation,  they  are  able  to  effect  settle- 
ments in  the  interests  of  the  whole  pub- 
lic. Now  if  the  Act  works  so  well  in 
regard  to  the  particular  classes  to  which 
it  applies ;  if  industrial  peace  is  what  we 
are  seeking,  why  limit  its  provisions  to 
those  particular  classes  alone  and  not 
frame  up  some  measure  which  will  be 
broad  enough  and  wide  enough  to  ex- 
tend some  such  kind  of  intervention  to 
all  industries  in  the  nature  of  public 
utilities,  all  industries  which  may  af- 
fect the  public  one  way  or  the  other 
(applause) ? 

SPECIAL  BOARDS  BEST 

Now  it  has  been  suggested  that  pos- 
sibly that  object  could  be  best  attained 
by  means  of  a  permanent  board.  Well, 
gentlemen,  a  permanent  board  has  its 
great  advantages  undoubtedly,  but 
there  is  one  point  to  consider  in  connec- 
tion with  a  permanent  board — and  as 
you  are  considering  these  questions 
now  I  hope  you  will  not  deem  it  pre- 
sumptuous if  I  mention  these  points — 
which  we  considered  at  the  time  we 
were  framing  this  Act. 

A  permanent  board  cannot  get  all 
over  the  country  at  one  time.  A  per- 
manent board  has  to  be  located  in  one 
place,  and  if  you  are  going  to  have  a 
measure  broad  enough  to  include  all 
classes  of  public  utilities,  to  deal  with 
mines,  to  deal  with  street  railways,  to 
deal  with  all  classes  of  railways,  some- 
thing wider  in  its  nature  or  more  easily 
suited  to  individual  localities  is  essen- 
tial, than  one  permanent  board. 

There  is  this  factor,  too,  to  consider 
in  connection  with  it,  and  that  is  the  ef- 
fect of  the  attitude  of  a  permanent 
board  toward  particular  questions ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  attitude  of  mind 
on  the  part  of  the  parties  affected 
toward  those  who  compose  a  perma- 
nent board.  If  you  get  the  right  men, 
perhaps  you  can  do  anything  with  a 


permanent  Board,  but  if  you  get  th< 
wrong  men  you  will  not  do  anything  01 
you  will  do  something  that  is  worse 
than  nothing   (applause). 

PARTIES  CHOOSE  BOARD 

Now  the  difference  between  the  tw< 
measures,  between  the  permanen 
board  idea  and  the  appointment  of  par 
ticular  boards  for  particular  circum 
stances,  is  that  under  the  scheme 
adopted  in  Canada  you  leave  t( 
the  parties  the  choice  of  the  men  wh< 
are  to  compose  the  board.  If  you  have 
got  a  Judge  Knapp,  if  you  have  got  a 
Mr.  Neill,  you  give  to  the  people  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  and  from 
Canada  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  the  op- 
portunity of  getting  either  of  these  gen- 
tlemen to  act  as  a  chairman  on  their 
particular  board.  These  individual 
boards,  in  our  country,  have  helped  to 
evolve  or  rather  to  disclose  to  the  pub- 
lic the  type  of  man  who  is  apt  to  win 
the  greatest  confidence.  We  have 
found  where  one  chairman  has  suc- 
ceeded in  one  case,  he  has  been  invari- 
ably picked  upon  as  chairman  for  an- 
other Board,  picked  upon  by  the  rep- 
resentatives of  labor  as  well  as  the  rep- 
resentatives of  capital,  because  he  has 
established  in  a  preceding  board  a  rep- 
utation for  honesty  in  dealings  of  that 
kind. 

Furthermore,  there  has  been  the  op- 
portunity of  going  all  over  the  country 
and  selecting  the  man  best  qualified  for 
that  particular  class  of  dispute.  Once 
you  get  a  board  giving  a  certain  class 
of  decisions,  undoubtedly  men  of  a  par- 
ticular mind  will  follow,  to  a  certain 
extent,  a  line  of  precedent,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  once  you  get  a  bias, 
whether  it  is  on  the  part  of  employers 
or  employees  against  a  particular  man 
on  a  permanent  board,  that  bias  will 
operate  to  the  detriment  and  the  ineffi- 
ciency of  his  work. 

You  get  over  that  difficulty  when  you 
leave  to  each  situation,  as  it  develops, 
the  appointing  of  the  men  best  qualified 
to  deal  with  that  particular  situation. 


14 


»'.  J.. 


WHY  LEAVE  MEDIATION 
OPTIONAL? 

If,    as    has    been    proven    on    every 
occasion    where    mediation    under   the 
lman  Act  has  taken  place  under  the 
Lgfoidance    of    these    gentlemen,  settle- 
wients    have    been    effected,   is  it  not 
jftvorth    while    considering   whether   it 
r  might  not  be  to  the  advantage  of  the 
public  generally  as  well  as  to  the  par- 
ties themselves  to  see  that  it  be  not  left 
[optional  with  the  parties  as  to  whether 
or  not  mediation  shall  take  place,  but 
[that  some  means  shall  be  devised  to 
[secure    mediation    in    advance    of   any 
strike  or  lockout?    That  is  one  of  the 
[factors  worth  considering,  whether,  it 
[having  been  established  that  mediation 
pis  successful,  it  is  not  just  as  wise  to 
I  have  it  before  trouble  breaks  out  as  to 
'  have  it  after  it  has  taken  place. 

Another  suggestion  that  I  believe  has 
found  favor  in  other  countries  and  finds 
favor  with  some  in  Canada,  and  I  be- 
lieve also  with  some  here,  is  the  idea 
of  compulsory  axhitratiorL — 

Now  the  distinction  between  the 
Canadian  Act  and  compulsory  arbitra- 
tion is  that  under  compulsory  arbitra- 
tion you  compel  the  parties,  under  pains 
and  penalties,  to  accept  the  findings  of 
a  board  and  abide  by  them.  Under  the 
Canadian  Act  the  compulsion  is  con- 
fined to  the  matter  of  investigation. 
You  restrain  the  parties  from  striking 
or  locking-out  until  the  investigation 
has  taken  place. 

BETTER  WAY  TO  JUSTICE 

Now  men  do  not  strike  or  lockout  for 
the  fun  of  it.  They  do  that  because  they 
feel  that,  in  the  last  resort  that  is  their 
means  of  obtaining  justice.  We  contend 
that  under  our  measures  we  afford 
them  a  better  means  of  obtaining  jus- 
tice than  a  strike  or  lockout,  and  we 
afford  that  means  at  the  expense  of  the 
public,  and  we  say  if  at  the  expense  of 
the  public,  to  whom  you  owe  the  opera- 
tion of  your  utilities,  you  are  able  to 
get  a  more  effective  means  for  settling 
your  difficulties  than  this  weapon  of  the 


strike  or  lockout  which  leaves  its  lega- 
cies of  debt  and  hatred  behind  it,  we 
ask  that  you  shall  take  advantage  of 
that  first,  and  if  you  are  not  satisfied 
with  it,  then  go  ahead  and  try  this 
other  particular  weapon. 

I  know  it  has  some  disadvantages 
from  certain  points  of  view,  but  if  you 
are  considering  the  action  over  a  period 
f  time  with  the  large  masses  of  me.% 
I  believe  on  sober,  careful  thought  that 
woikingmen  as  well  as  employers  and 
the  public  generally  will  come  to  see 
that  that  is  the  best  way. 

I  think  it  was  Pym,  a  British  states- 
man, who  said  on  one  occasion,  "That 
form  of  government  is  best  which  does 
actuate  and  dispose  every  member  of 
the  State  to  the  common  good." 

I  do  not  think  as  a  maxim  of  g^v- 
ment  that  has  ever  been  surpassed,  and 
I  think  we  can  apply  the  philosophy 
underlying  that  to  industrial  situations 
as  well,  and  we  can  say  that  that  form 
of  settlement  of  industrial  differences  is 
best  which  will  best  actuate  and  dis- 
pose every  part  and  member  of  the  in- 
dustrial community  to  the  common 
good. 

THE  HUMAN  ELEMENT 

Now,  in  thinking  of  compulsory  ar- 
bitration, you  have  to  take  into  account 
two  things — human  nature  as  it  is  and 
conditions  as  they  are;  and  there  are  no 
two  more  variable  factors  in  the  world 
than  these  two.  Economic  phenomena 
are  broader  than  mere  legal  phe- 
nomena, and  while  courts  may  be  able 
to  deal  satisfactorily  with  certain 
classes  of  cases,  it  requires  almost  om- 
niscient intelligence  to  be  able  to  sum 
up  in  a  way  what  is  best  under  all  cir- 
cumstances for  men  and'  for  com- 
panies, where  you  are  dealing  with  hu- 
man life  and  with  conditions  which 
vary,  not  merely  with  what  happens 
within  a  particular  area,  but  what  hap- 
pens within  other  parts  of  the  world 
as  well. 

And  so  when  you  give  to  the  parties 
who  are  involved  in  these  disputes  a 


16 


chance  of  naming  their  awn  member 
and  of  agreeing  upon  a  chairman,  you 
get  a  position  where  each  side  feels  to 
a  certain  extent  it  has  had  to  do  with 
the  shaping  of  the  tribunal  which  is  ad- 
judicating upon  its  affair.  You  take 
account  of  that  love  of  liberty  in  the  in- 
dividual man,  of  an  assertion  of  his  own 
rights.  Men  do  not  like  to  have  things 
superimposed  upon  them.  They  would 
rather,  to  a  large  extent,  share  in  the 
formation  of  particular  tribunals  and 
then  fall  in  line  with  the  particular 
award  which  may  be  given.  That,  I 
think,  is  an  important  consideration, 
and  one  that  it  is  well  to  keep  in  mind 
in  the  framing  of  any  measure. 

Legal  enactment  can  do  a  certain 
amount,  but  there  are  factors  in  life 
which  are  of  vaster  import  in  dealing 
with  social  conditions  than  the 'mere 
matter  of  legal  enactment,  and  what  the 
law  can  best  do  is  to  try  to  bring  these 
factors  to  bear  in  some  way  upon  in- 
dustrial situations. 

Men  are  more  than  measures.  There- 
fore, in  shaping  any  legislation  have  in 
mind  that  in  the  last  anaylsis  what 
should  be  aimed  at  is  in  some  way  to 
fashion  the  measure  so  that  the  right 
men  may  be  brought  to  deal  with  it. 

In  the  second  place,  personality  is  a 
greater  thing  than  policy  of  any  kind, 
and  so  in  the  fashioning  of  any  legis- 
lation which  you  hope  to  make  effective 
in  dealing  with  industrial  questions,  try 
to  draft  a  measure  so  as  to  leave  play 
for  that  subtle  and  most  important  of 
all  the  factors  known  to  man,  the  play 
of  human  personality  in  regard  to  par- 
ticular questions. 

PUBLICITY 

Thirdly,  publicity  in  some  respects  is 
more  effective  as  a  means  of  remedy 
than  penalty.  Penalty  is  a  last  resort, 
but  a  more  effective  means  of  bringing 
about   a  remedy  to   a   situation  is   to 


frame  it  up,  if  you  can,  in  such  a  fas| 
ion  that  the  light  of  pubic  opinion  m; 
be  brought  to  bear  upon  it.  It  isj 
curious  thing  that  while  men,  as  in< 
viduals,  may  be  mean  and  contempl 
ble,  still  collectively  and  in  a  group  aj 
in  the  light  of  day,  they  cannot  affc 
to  let  their  action  appear  in  that  lig] 
(Applause.) 

All  legislation  should  aim  at  prevei 
ing  the  mean  man  from  profiting  in  vj 
tue  of  his  meanness,  and  I  believe 
best  way  to  bring  about  that  result  | 
in  some  way  to  expose  to  the  pul 
gaze  either  the  employer  or  the  woi 
ingman   who   may  be    seeking,   throt 
his  meanness,  to  profit  in  virtue  ofj 
(applause). 

If  you  can  devise  machinery  whi 
will  have  that  effect,  then  it  seems 
me    penalties    are    unnecessary, 
sense  of  good  throughout  the  world  il 
reality  more  powerful  than  any  pena] 
which  a  law  may  impose. 

And,  lastly,  gentlemen,  rememl 
this,  and  this  I  would  say  particula] 
to  my  friends,  the  workingmen,  th< 
is  no  truer  statement  in  human  philoj 
phy  than  that  maxim  of  Burke  when; 
stated,  "Justice  *s  the  common  c< 
cern  of  mankind." 

If   you    can    fashion    some    measi 
which   will   enable  you  to  place  bef 
mankind  at  large  a  situation  in  its  ti 
and  in  its  proper  light,  and  bring 
its     bearing     upon     the     communi 
whether  it  be  small  or  large,  and  pi; 
your   trouble   and   your  wrong,   wl 
ever  it  may  be,  before  that  great  b< 
of  organized  public  opinion,  if  you 
fashion    a    measure    toward    that 
which  will  enable  you  to  do  that  thij 
then  it  seems  to  me  that  you  can  lei 
with  confidence,  the  result  to  the  w( 
ing-out  of  that  eternal  maxim  that  "jl 
tice  is   the  common   concern  of  m| 
kind." 

(Great  and  prolonged  applause.] 


16 


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